After spending a year on a merchant vessel with his siblings, Vidas decided to head for the University. Velta stayed on the ship, although she promised to always find the two younger boys, should they ever get into trouble. The three siblings promised to meet at least every five years and write often.
Kostas and Vidas travelled together for a little while. The boys’ trip through the countryside was not quite the adventure they had hoped it to be: hunger and sore legs became the norm and they soon grew tired of sleeping in barns and ditches. Eventually, Vidas had to bid farewell to his little brother as well. After a voyage from Alitaria to Ambariya, Vidas arrived at the gates of the mighty University, and realised that ship boys from backwater islands were not the typical students here.
Laurentius was the one who got him in. Apparently, the old man had been a renowned military doctor in his youth and had colleagues in the University's ranks. He had wanted to leave it all behind and disappear in the North, making up for his wartime sins by helping people. But he was here again, and now he could pay for Vidas' education. Well, Vidas would still have to take care of himself and the available housing was limited to the old clocktower of the University, since the dormitories were very expensive, but for Vidas, it was better than what he was used to.
It truly felt like his luck had changed. For many years he fell asleep to the sound of the University clock's ticking. The clock was very old and too complicated for its own good, and so it often jammed. Vidas was tasked with the maintenance of the clock, and sometimes he tinkered with it. Not only that, he wanted to understand how it worked, although most of the time he ended up breaking the mechanism. It was not uncommon to see the boy balancing on the thin railing surrounding the roof of the clocktower, trying to fix the giant clock. That alone was enough to earn him an odd reputation - it did not help that his unconventional past and Ashlander appearance contributed to it.
Vidas was not outstanding in any other way than his academic prowess (and that, too, was mostly limited to things he was interested in). He was clumsy and awkward and restless; he preferred solitude and although he was never bullied, he didn't have many friends. However, he did have one. As the most popular girl of their year, Callista Ballista was his opposite. She was the oldest daughter of a very prestigious family and ambitious like Vidas, but more calculated. She excelled in everything she did, she was always perfect. Callista was his friend despite all the other friends she could have, and Vidas adored her. That adoration grew into a quiet sort of love, the kind he would never dare utter out loud but that would always tie him to Callista.
The cold streets of Istazsa had not taken away Vidas' idealism or his good heart. He worked to make the world a better place for people like him, for people who didn't have access to education or even proper masks to shield from the Ashfall. His graduation project was to design a filtering mask that would be cheap to make and easy to wear. However, his speech about corruption and the distribution of wealth was met with resistance from the University consisting mostly of noble families and their heirs. Vidas was seen as a crazy radical and the University threatened to expel him. Indeed, he would have been expelled if it weren't for a very authoritative man.
Bartolomeo Barros was a member of the University’s board and every bit worthy of the position. His words held great weight in many places, especially here. Now, he was certain that young Vidas had no ill will, he was simply a little misguided in his youth and had a burning resolve to make the world a better place. In fact, when he graduated - he would graduate, wouldn’t he, Mrs. Principal? - Barros would love to include Vidas in his research group. Miss Callista had spoken well of him, and she had already proved to be an exemplary member of the group. Suddenly Vidas turned from a soon-to-be-expelled radical into a member of a well-respected research group.
Barros became like a father to Vidas. He was one of Laurentius’ old war comrades, however, to Vidas’ surprise, Laurentius himself didn’t seem to approve of the new addition to the research group. Vidas soon came to find out that the old doctor worked as the head of medical research, although he had not told that to Vidas himself. He barely spoke to the boy and when he did, it was almost hostile, as if he was trying to drive him away. Vidas eventually learned to ignore him, wondering what happened to the morose yet kind old doctor he remembered from his youth.
While Callista was in charge of weaponry in the group, Vidas was the master of metals and engineering. He never found out what the research group was exactly after, simply creating mechanisms and alloys as instructed. He earned himself a good reputation by developing a new kind of alloy from iron and the ash of his homelands, one that was ever so slightly magical, very light and durable. With reputation came responsibility and Vidas was chosen to teach younger students from poor families. It was like a dream come true: Vidas had always wanted to become a professor, and now he could give the smartest and most hard-working of his students a chance to receive scholarships in academies around the world. He became very fond of his students and his students adored him. Every time, when he sent the best students away, he missed them terribly and could not help but wonder what happened to them.
Still, Vidas was happy. So happy he became like a well-behaved dog trying to maintain his happiness. A good dog sees no evil in his master. For many years, Vidas ignored the papers written in foreign languages. For many years, he shoved aside the doubts he had about the complex formulae and clockwork devices he created. For many years, he refused to listen to the strange noises he heard from the laboratories when no one was allowed to go in. Later, he refused to see those inhumane forms that distorted the body bags meant for human shapes. For many years, he loathed Doctor Laurentius, who left the laboratories with his pathologist’s coat soaked in blood. But never did he have a reason to doubt the safety of his students. Not until he found two of them in body bags.
Martha and Lucas were their names, although they were barely recognisable. Vidas remembered them fondly: Martha wanted to study mathematics and support her family, Lucas was a blacksmith’s son who wanted to become the greatest swordsmith. Now they were dead. Or were they? Martha’s chest rose erratically, almost unnaturally, even though her little body looked as if it had been torn apart and stitched back together multiple times, flesh stretched and popped into bloody craters to reveal inhumane bones, teeth and claws. Lucas looked the same, although he was deathly still, staring at Vidas with those cold, dark eyes reflecting foreign skies and unknown stars.
“There has been a terrible accident,” said Barros apologetically. Vidas ran to an empty auditorium and vomited.
The following days passed in a haze. He was haunted by the visage of his dead students and the knowledge that they were probably not the first ones who had met such a terrible fate. It drove him to abandon his leash and the comfort of his happiness. What he found out was enough to finally break him. Indeed, they murdered children in cold blood and Vidas had aided them.
He found Callista, desperate to confide in her steady presence. Perhaps, they could expose the group together. But when Callista heard of the children, she looked unimpressed, almost as if she already knew. “Great accomplishments require great sacrifices,” she simply remarked. To his horror, Vidas was met with the same indifference from the principal. Then from the board members. He took to the hallways of the university and told anyone who would listen about dead children and foreign skies, yet no one believed him. It was then that Barros grabbed his arm with brutal strength and dragged him away.
And so, the beloved professor Vidmantas Pelenai locked himself in his laboratory and set it ablaze. He was driven mad by the ash of his homelands that had slowly corrupted his brain. In the explosion, he burned to nothing along with his research that he had most likely been killing his students for. The research group had tried to stop him but were unable to, and they were mourning the loss of a family member who turned out to be a mad scientist. The story made the newspapers for a few weeks, but was soon forgotten.
That is not what really happened. Vidas was taken to the laboratories and forced on a table. He screamed and fought back and begged the man he saw as his father to let him go, but Barros did not think well of useless dogs. But even useless dogs could be sacrificed for the greater good. However, to the research group’s disappointment, Experiment Number 19 was also a failure despite his great potential, and so to Barros this was the end of Vidas’ story.
What Number 19 went through during that indeterminate amount of time was not something meant for any mortal to experience. He felt limbs where there were none but could not feel his own; he saw things that did not exist but could not see reality. The pain blinded him and opened his eyes, his ears rang with a high-pitched noise, he heard his name spoken from foreign skies and saw the light of strange stars. He remembered his name, then forgot it again. He woke up in a warm cradle of blood and guts and despite the pain, he felt comfortable and drowsy. Then he drowned in cold liquid that burned. He was overwhelmed with the sensation of nerves ending in nothingness. He was very still for a very long time. Then he breathed in the liquid he could now recognize as formaldehyde and almost lost consciousness again from the burn. However, he felt another burn deep in his chest, one that was not caused by formaldehyde but rather by all-consuming rage. He wanted vengeance, and that want made his nerves connect to his arm. His hand formed a fist and something understood, something gave way to his nerves and yielded, yet never left him completely alone.